Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Tomorrow is Mayday. This whole month has been Mayday. MAYDAY! I wonder if we can truly survive here - create a life for ourselves? We're close to rock bottom. Can we swim up, make ourselves a boat? Cruise for a bit?On May 1 there are flowers on little makeshift tables all over France, tied with little ribbons. The Mayday flowers last - I don't know what they're called. I had a little potted one last year on the kitchen sink - white - it sat there for months. I remember being in the country one Mayday years ago, in a convertible with two boys. We were going to a pretentious lunch out at someone's country property. I was wearing the wrong clothes, deep in the back seat. The vibe was all Bret Easton Ellis. The boy who was driving suddenly stopped at a random intersection in the middle of nowhere. I didn't know what was going on because the top had been down and I couldn't hear their conversation. Even if I could, they were speaking too fast and in too much argot for me to understand. They jumped out of the car, still talking about their boys school days or something. I didn't exist and I didn't really care. The air was sweet. There was nothing but dry grass as far as the eye could see. Were they going to kill me? And then I saw an elderly man just off to the other side of the intersection sitting behind a little makeshift table. On it were little bunches of flowers tied with white ribbons. Before the man could come to standing the boys had already thrown some cash down on the table, grabbed two bunches of the nicer flowers and were back in the car, still yammering and sharing their joint. The man slowly went to sit down again. He probably wasn't sad but the simple act of sitting down at the intersection in the middle of nowhere felt like resignation. I got back in the car. When we arrived at the château, the boys threw the flowers down on the kitchen table and went out into the backyard where their friends were drinking rosé. There were lots of similar bunches strewn all over the table. I slunk outside, wondering what the point of them was.

Friday, April 26, 2013

My dad likes 'two fruits' in the morning, on his WeetiesMy dad has coffee from the microwaveMy dad says it was years of being on tv sets that helped himtruly appreciate granulated coffeeMy dad likes airplane foodMy dad likes hospital foodMy dad says 'All you need is three things. Something in your tummy. Something to keep the rain off. And someone who likes you a bit.' My dad never wants to go to the party and then you have to drag him out at the endMy dad never wanted to come to Paris and then he did and now he comes all the time and has a old map of the city on his guest toilet doorMy dad once bought a toilet seat that was made of perspex and had underwater art inside it - fish and coral and shells etcMy dad lives by the beach, but never swims, just looksMy dad can't resist a lemon crisp with his coffeeMy dad is all about chocolate teddy bears My dad used to put Wagon Wheels under our pillows while we slept My dad drinks coffee before going to bed at nightMy dad can't understand why he sleeps so badlyMy dad gets excited when he sees rosellas in his backyard My dad has arms that when you're in them make you feel like the world is very safeChildren melt in the crook of my dad's neck My dad has nails which are all picked back My dad has an excellent crop of thick silver hair My dad answers his landlineMy dad answers his mobile even when he's at dinnerMy dad never wanted a mobile phoneMy dad never wanted an iphoneMy dad was right!My dad visits people and calls people just to say hello My dad gets wild when you don't use the flash My dad swears he's not an artistMy dad gets passionate about the organization of events such as weddings and christmasesMy dad loves show tunes My dad keeps his house immaculately clean, usually to show tunesMy dad says anything is fun, when you've got musicMy dad doesn't think you can ever listen to the same soundtrack enough, or film, especially ones involving show tunesMy dad puts hotel chocolates on folded towels on each bed for each guest in his house, even if it's just usMy dad doesn't make too big a deal when his children go off to all sorts of places in their lives - he graciously lets them go My dad makes a big deal of everybody's birthdaysHe says he never wants to make a big deal of hisBut if I was there today, I would - I would do a big song and dance until he said 'Oh, must you make a song and dance about it?' Fortunately he's already being spoilt by Nanny C and all the gang.I'm glad.My dad is happy.X

Monday, April 22, 2013

If the sheer amount of butter and sugar inside an escargot from Du Pain et des Idées can kill, then I shall gratefully die a thousand painful, artery-clogged deaths. I don't normally allow myself - not like the old days at Prune with J and two of their pain au chocolats - each. How did we get away with that? I remember the slightly insane feeling creeping into my brain, the caffeine from that second terrible crème going to my head - the rising panic of too much richness in my veins. Ah - I could go and tear a house down. Conversations were passionate. Back then we could chain smoke inside, and we did, and the indulgence was so fantastic we could have died with bonheur.

Ah J, Paris is not the same without you, and even if you were still here, we probably wouldn't eat quite so many pastries. Certainly not the escargot.

They really are works of art. The range is ever changing. Today it was a choice between rhum et raisin, fruits rouges et cream cheese and chocolat pistache. Once a year there is fig and walnut and that is just about enough to throw me off the edge. Today I chose fruit rouges et cream cheese. I deserved it because I'd been on the RER to a place called Evry for a corporate acting gig, and I hadn't got too lost, and I did an ok job of acting like I was a formatrice in front of a teleprompter. I had twenty minutes to kill before picking up Kiki. So I treated myself.

Then I went and ate a grasshopper. The contrast was astounding. My escargot was barely digested and still a note of sweet creamy joy lingering on my palate when Kiki and I popped into Julhès to get her some gnocchi. Julhès is a cheese shop that sells all sorts of wines and fancy things. But mainly cheese - it's been our staple for years but they recently got taken over by a whole lot of weird zombies so we don't buy cheese there as much. The gnocchi man seemed not to be stoned this time and when I went to leave he asked if I'd like to taste their sauterelle.

'Sure,' I said, thinking sauterelle, or grasshopper, must be some sort of interesting cheese, just like snail can be a delicious gluttonous pastry. But he came over with something in his fingertips and dropped a small insect into my hand, a bit like a dried chilli, but with a head and antennae and a little abdomen. My stomach turned. The man smiled. 'Sauterelle.'

'Well I suppose we do eat bugs in the country I come from,' I said. His female colleague and champion zombie sidled up beside him, smiling at me. She was holding a jar, like a salt container, full of the little chillies.

It was a dare.

Who knew?

I ate it.

It was disgusting.

'It's not my thing,' I choked to the man, who smiled and took the jar from the lady, shaking it. The sound of the dried bugs inside made me want to puke up my delicious escargot over their array of chevres frais.

Sauterelle.

Escargot.

At least I know now for sure which I'd rather stick in my vermin hole.

Saturday, April 20, 2013

We had a pigeon nesting in one of our window boxes - I'm not a big fan of pigeons, neither is Kiki - she runs screaming from them when she sees them on the street - but this was one of those beautiful dove grey ones with the shimmery peacock-blue necks. I noticed her sitting in the soil one morning and she was doing a strange wiggly dance whilst rooting deeper into the depths of the box. I wondered if she was dying, or perhaps if she was giving birth. She looked distressed, but controlled. It reminded me of something. Kiki and I watched and later that night when we came back Kiki banged on the glass and the pigeon flew over to a window sill on the other side of the street. And sure enough, there was a pretty little white egg, about the size of the hole if you touch your index finger with your thumb. It was perfect.The next morning we got up and ran to the window. The pigeon was there again in the same spot, looking still and proud and grand. Her feathers were perfectly smooth - she could have been made of porcelain. We wondered - what now? She ruffled her feathers slightly when Kiki moved, but she stayed. After breakfast we returned and saw that the pigeon was doing the strange movement again, heaving and puffing, her breast rippling and coiling. I slowly backed Kiki away from the glass. Peace, peace. It was nice that she had chosen our window. She obviously felt safe. I felt proud - like a midwife.That evening we returned and there were two eggs in the little ditch. Kiki and I danced around the room. Two babies! We wondered how many more there might be. A dozen? We wondered what they might look like. And how long their gestation period was. Would we see them breaking out of the eggs like in cartoons? What do baby pigeons look like? Are they disgusting? How long does it take for them to fly?

I could have looked all that up on the internet but that would have ruined the excitement.

The next morning our lady was there again, still and silent. She trusted us. I thought about giving her a little bowl of water, but that just seemed un-Parisien. She was a pigeon. She knew where to get shit.

We watched. We tittered. We ran to the window each morning. No more eggs, just the two. A still, careful mother. Mr Rabbit and I wondered what the sex had been like. We wondered how many other children she had had. How many babies does the typical pigeon have in a lifetime? Stuff like that.

It became part of our day, and we watched and watched and watched. We pulled the red chair up to the window and Kiki sat on my knee. The chair was carefully positioned off to one side of the window.

And then this morning when we awoke, they were gone! All of them! Vanished! WHAT HAPPENED? I couldn't help feeling like we'd had people staying and they had just cleared out without so much as a note. But moreover, I was worried. What did that mean? Had they been killed/eaten? Had they fallen the four flights down to the footpath below? Mr Rabbit peered over. No squashed birds. We couldn't figure it out. Are baby pigeons able to fly as soon as they hatch?

I'd had visions of waking to the cracks in the eggs, then the little heads poking out, then the little slimy babies in the dirt, watching the mother clean them off, sharing a glass of champagne with her and musing over our sharedexperiences, the mysterious joy of these strange new creatures just entered our lives. But she was gone - gone! I would never know what they even looked like. I'm so sad I won't know them. Will I, perhaps, in the street? Maybe one day I will be walking down the top end of the Faubourg St Denis and as the flock does its usual explosion into the sky two little ones will remain on that dirty bit of concrete and they will just look at me and I will know.

Friday, April 19, 2013

I sometimes wonder how anyone ever gets anything done and why. And then I realise I'm wondering too hard, so I paint my nails. Dad says I sound angry lately - I'm not. Just a bit - nowhere. Frustrated. Am I lazy? I think so. How I long to have some concrete things achieved, so I can feel real. Why I write this blog - it is at least something, even if it really is nothing. My nails are red now, that's something. In the deepest depression comes the greatest fashion because it's then you realise - what else is there? I think the fashion world are more aware than we think - we dismiss it as folly, but fashion people are more aware than any of us of the emptiness of being. I should paint myself more. If you're more designed then you can take more pictures of yourself in your mind, thus be realer, at least for yourself. Perhaps. There is no way of denying the existence of bright red nails - you notice them, they're there. Especially with the clear varnish over the top to make them shine.

Thursday, April 11, 2013

What kind of a human gets a hangover from one beer? I'm disgusted at myself. True, it was one of those big fishbowl glasses of Affligem, but still. I fear I am becoming weak. I fear my liver has become to clean with all this healthy living. All these AFDs. That is house-speak for Alcohol Free Day. See - it's so common we even have an acronym for it. Ah, to be disgusting again, to wake up feeling ok about being hungover, because it is just normal. Not to panic and think - how many days have I lost off the end of my life?I dream of cigarettes, long, white, beautiful. Cigarettes are so very right in Paris because they mean you can enjoy the atmosphere more. What's the point of sitting on terraces reading books if you can't draw back on a lovely rollie made of J's Fleur de Pays? Or just a good, trusty Marlboro straight from the packet, alongside a fantastic, rancid café crème. Cigarettes make the moment longer. And if it's that time of the day where you feel like neither a coffee or a beer, you can just sit on a step somewhere, or even stand, and watch the world go by, smoking. You would look and feel weird if you just stood there, probably like a pervert. I remember an old friend, annoyed at smokers getting smoke breaks in his office suggested that he and his mates go out for fart breaks. They could just stand around, talk, fart. Shoot the breeze, so to speak. I understood his point - how boring is life for non-smokers - there's no point to going outside and enjoying unnecessary life moments. Smoking helps you take in time, be present, hear a story about last night's fumbled root. You're more involved in life. It's better.

I've thought about lighting up many, many a time, of late. But the trouble is, now I have a daughter and am getting old, suddenly my health is more important than anything. That was never an issue before - I just was healthy. I didn't need to try at it so much - certainly didn't need to get up a 6:30am in the morning and do yoga ever day to feel fit. Now the thought of waking up with ciggy lungs is unbearable. Disgusting. Even the thought of that sweet sweet first drag on that springtime terrace in the early evening sun, pinching the stem of a glass of rosé is not enough to conquer the fear of that crusty chest.

Ah, aging is so boring. What do those spiky red-lipped middle-aged walker-smokers everywhere think about it? They seem so happy with their little friend, but what about the mornings? Don't they feel the panic of their end of days growing ever closer with every inhale? Don't they worry that their enjoyment now of that lovely rich tobacco will tomorrow turn their skin yellow and their lips to stone?

Wednesday, April 10, 2013

It must be hard to be too cool for school.When you start a restaurant and everyone comes.And everyone's there - all the time - all these peopleYou once wanted to attractNow deep down you desire to repel.You can't help it - being wanted that bad is a turnoff So you serve bento boxes with pork in them that's a bit cold.Your quinoa/rice thing doesn't have the same love in it it initially did.No more pistachios. All these people, all these cool cool people eating in your cool cool restaurant.You want to CUT THEM with your SUSHI KNIFE, bare your fangs FUCKOFF...Cool, cool, be coool.And you wonder, If only we didn't become so cool in the first place.Remember when it was just the regulars?These fuckbags - what do they know?Pecking away at their loveless bentos. Choosing to use chopsticks though they don't know how and it takes them that much longer to eat and GET OUT.This chick here ordering take-away - look at her - no way she's a reviewer for Le Fooding.Give her some lame-ass porkMaybe she won't come backThough she's a glutton for our green-tea cheesecake.Who invented that anyway?Too cool for goddamned school.

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Kiki is a dumpling. How am I not supposed to eat her? Sitting there on the couch in her tiny wife beater and nappy, skin all warm from the heaters and the nudie runs. She smells like ice cream - how am I supposed to not lick her face off? Especially when we're in the country for example and it's the dead of night and she is sleeping in our bed for the first time since she was a baby because the air is so cold it aches and I have to bring her in with us for peace of mind though she molests me under my pyjama top like a big old tired drunk and then falls asleep face wet with rejection and for a moment I can see her face in the moonlight and it is a porcelain doll and her flesh smells like the Strawberry Shortcake doll I used to bite, but it never tasted as good as it smelt.I suspect Kiki would taste as good as she smells, if not better. Just looking at her I think my heart might burst inside my chest, just like her cheeks might explode inside my mouth like the inside of a juicy peach. Oh, to ingest her, to have her part of me again. I remember once wanting so bad to crawl back inside my mother. If I could only have Kiki in my body again, all would be perfect. I miss her so close to me all the time, though I pull her clawing little hands away from my chest like someone being pawed by a dog. We are together, but separate. We are separating. Seeing her face is heartbreak - it's in front of me, I can't have it. I want it like I wanted that Strawberry Shortcake doll.But she was never mine. Kiki wakes and begins to eat me. And I realise the Peach is Me. I wonder if she'll ever be able to give me up?

Monday, April 8, 2013

This morning just before I woke up I had the most intense dream and it's still with me. In the dream I was holding a grown man in my arms - he was my son - and then I started breastfeeding him. It was deeply beautiful and I remember thinking - my god - I have a son.

I think the dream came because I was looking at a funny picture last night of a friend of mine with his mother at his high school graduation and he was so tall and gangly and manly and she looked so petite and feminine and I thought - wow - it must feel amazing to have created that - a man. She was dwarfed by man - the man that was her son. How protected she must have felt in the world. How empowered. I wondered if that was what it felt like.

I had never ever considered that I would have a son - I always knew that one day I would have a Kiki and that would perhaps be it. I don't think a boy or a man resided in me - I just never considered it. When the ultrasound said Girl I thought - of course - I hadn't really considered any other option. If it had been a boy in there I think I would have been knocked for six. That would have required a lot of decoding and re-enregistering. Is that a word or a Franglais? It is happening more and more.

I think I was also dreaming of grown men as I have met three of the most beautiful young men I've ever known in my life who live on the first floor and they too have an incredible petite mother over whom they tower with all their young manly grace and strength. I am a bit gobsmacked by these young men - they study and play jazz piano and have girlfriends and do 'footing' (which is the correct French way for saying 'jogging' - which nobody says - everyone just says 'jogg-eeng'). They brought Kiki a birthday present which is the Famille Tortue which is her favourite and they also brought her Easter eggs in a little bowl which a hungry lady ate most of.

So I have been thinking of boys and men and perhaps slightly tapping into the mysterious love my mother had for my two brothers. I felt it too in some ways being so much older than them - but she was enamored. She loved us girls but the boys were the apple of her eye. Such a different relationship. She cried when Lady Diana died and I was shocked at her grief. 'Her boys', she said. Only recently I realised - her boys were the same ages as those princes.

Now my brother is growing his own little boy inside luscious E. There is something about the idea of growing a boy that I find infathomable. To grow a girl inside a girl seems somehow normal - but to grow a penis inside of you - to compose a tiny male inside a female - that is just crazy. It's amazing it doesn't turn women slightly insane to be fabricating male body parts within all those female hormones and liquids.

But in my dream, there was this man in my lap - all pièta - and sooo beautiful. He protected me too. I felt whole. He wasn't dying or anything - just in my arms. I think he had clothes on and everything - it was no great tragedy - just my boy baby all grown up. When I got out my boob it felt so natural.

Friday, April 5, 2013

Keep smiling when you order the same coffee from the same man every morning, even though he is closed off. He might be your age and have a nice face and it might be hard that he is so shut off, but keep being polite and smiling and say have a nice day. Don't let it get to you. Smile again the next day and say Bonjour and don't say anything more than that (like idiotic things about weather, traffic, politics, etc) - just enjoy the feelings of the words you're saying curl and exit your mouth, and try to keep them sounding nice, but don't try too hard. Don't take it to heart that it has been seventeen weeks you have ordered the same coffee every day and you still have to say it the same every day and the face hasn't cracked in any hint of a sign of recognition of you - he sees a lot of people in a day - don't worry. Keep ordering, keep being polite - just so - you can say Bonne journée or Bon week-end depending on the occasion, but don't say bonne fin de journée, that's subservient. Know your place - exactly the precise edge upon which it sits, don't go over either edge or you'll lose it. And so, plug away, day after day, smile, speak, exit. Gentle, but strong and right. And then yesterday you will start to see the effect. The tiny muscles in the face starting to ease up a little, the faraway hint of not a smile, but a certain warmth. And that tiny tiny hint will feel as warm as the first hint of sun after the longest winter you can remember. You could bask naked in the warmth of that sun - it is utterly engulfing. And then today - watch - a slightly dropped shoulder - a distant echo of a hint of an invitation at friendship two centuries away when you will walk in and he will just start making your coffee and drop a comment about the idiot cool hotdog joint that just opened up across the road and how much the area is changing and how awfully cold it's been - seems like forever! - and are you planning a trip this summer? Almost. But not quite - and also never as you repeat the same words you've said nearly a hundred times. But maybe. Just keep going and whatever you do don't get excited and skip ahead. Don't break it.

Wednesday, April 3, 2013

In France, April 1 is Fish of April. It's a bit like April Fool's only more complicated. It floats my boat. On Fish of April you stick a paper cutout of a fish on someone's back and then you trick them and then when they figure it out (or if they don't and start crying) you say'Poisson d'Avril!!' and then the person raises their eyebrows and twists their arm around their back and there, sure enough, is a fish. They smile and sigh and you both laugh your heads off. Well, that is if you didn't really upset them.I got got once good - and it wasn't on Poisson d'Avril. For my oldest, dearest friend, every day is Fish of April. He is the only person that knows how to get me so good - I am definitely gullible but I can usually sniff out a ruse after some amount of time. I'm not sure if it's because he knows me so well or if he's just an expert Poisson-er, I suspect a bit of both. Anyway it was the best getting I have ever got and it still makes me laugh and cry at the same time when I think about it. It's got that fantastic tragic edge particular to a truly great Poisson.Almost a little too far, but not so far as to tell someone that their mother is actually alive or something. Just teetering the finest edge ofwrong. So right.We had arrived in LA for one of my dearest friend's wedding - I was bridesmaid. We had never been so poor - a few weeks earlier Mr Rabbit had won our month's overdue rent at Vincennes, putting our last 30 euros on one horse, which won and then another won and won and became a thousand. We ate a steak in the sun that day at that little brasserie outside the Chatelet metro where you get waited on by an 8 year old and we felt like kings.But we couldn't afford to get to the wedding so dad spotted us the cash. It was humiliating but not as humiliating as the idea of not being able to go. So we went. And when we arrived at the Standard Hotel, we thought it had been paid for by the wedding party - another terrible horrible humiliating moment. The car had been valet parked and our credit cards were laughing inside the machine as the mermaid laughed inside her fishtank behind the counter at an article she was reading in Variety. Cool people sashayed past in bikinis. We were Paris-winter-pallid. There was a glam sci-fi feel to the foyer and I wondered if one of the slick lifts might whisk me graciously down to hell. The gentle but condescending man at the desk agreed to wait an hour until we could make 'arrangements' for the money to be paid. He gave us the key. We checked into our room. On the other side of the door we burst into panicky laughter. Teary bursts of FUCK! What were we thinking? It was nobody's fault - it's just we would have stayed in the Comfort Inn instead of the Standard had we known we were paying - we had been living off lentils for weeks. And that wasn't the worst of it. Mr Rabbit had a meeting in forty minutes on the lot of Fox Studios and needed to activate his phone so heand his manager could hook up in the parking lot. It was a big meeting. No credit meant no phone credit meant no Bump meant one-chance meeting fuckup. FUCK! He jumped in the shower and I spent ten minutes frantically calling everyone in LA I knew begging them to call T-Mobile to buy some credit. Ah, scumbag. I never felt so scummy!Success - Mr Rabbit tore away and I called my dad feeling like the worst kind of infection - a grown up fetus, a disappointment. He was kind and transferred the money. I sighed and jumped in the shower.The phone rang. I jumped out of the shower. A voice on the line said,"Mr Rabbit please."The voice sounded important - American. I put on my best secretary voice."I'm sorry, Mr Rabbit is out at a meeting. Can I take a message?"What happened then is, in my memory, so embarrassing that I have blurred a lot of it out. I sat there naked on the carpet, hip 70s style curtains blocking some of the sun, but allowing one stripe to cut across the room, which I lay in. The man was in a boardroom with a group of music producers. They wanted Mr Rabbit. They said he was the next big thing. In a moment of squeamish humiliation he said,"We think his band could be the next Jet,"To which I replied,"Ooh yes - definitely - even better." My voice was fake and I was a fucking idiot and my best friend continued and continued. It rose and rose - him starting to try to give me hints by means of exaggeration,"We want to sign with him NOW...""Multi million dollar contract...""The hottest new thing..."Oh my GOD. We had made it! Yesterday I was crying in the airport over how poor we were and today here I was naked on the carpet of the Standard and we had DONE IT! Mr Rabbit was out there and he didn't even know - he was it! Images flashed through my mind - beautiful houses, magnificent clothes, red carpets, sellout gigs, magazines, food... My friend, not expecting this to last so long began to get tired of the game and said,"In fact, his friend Mr Wa recommended him very highly."To which I mortifyingly replied,"Oh, Mr Wa is my oldest, bestest friend! We've known each other since we were born!"To which he replied, starting to get very bored and also feel very bad."In fact, Mr Wa is here right now!"But I still didn't twig."Bunny!!" he said into the phone."Mr Wa!" I said. "I can't believe this is happening!"He cleared his throat. "I..know!!" I wonder if he was at that point actually wondering if he could somehow get his Poisson to materialise. How was he to know what a state we were in. What this could mean at this particular point. He was just joking - I don't think he had ever rung up and just said, "Hi, it's Wa." There was always something. But this time, in the state I was in, in the place I was in, I had just needed to believe so bad."Bunny, it's Wa," he finally had to repeat. "There's no boardroom."I was silent for quite a long moment.Then a laugh similar to the pained gut-one we had had on entering the room that day built and simmered in my gut:"You."I was silent again for a moment. And then with a particular tang as yet unexpressed in this lifetime by my physical being I said:"C...UNT!"It rose from deep within my soul like an Exorcist vom:"YOU CUNT!!!" And I began to roll around the floor clutching my stomach in a sort of childbirthy agonised laughter."YOU FUCKING FUCKING CUNTY CUUUUUUNT!!" He moaned on the other end."Ahhhh...nooo...darling..." And I laughed and laughed and laughed and felt so so sore. It was the sorest bestest worst laugh I've ever had.I got got and have never been so got since. Though I'm sure he will still get me again - I'm open and dumb like that, and he is wonderfully, achingly brilliant.